shadows of five earthworks,
and saw lines of white tents sweeping to the horizon. Gayly caparisoned
officers passed me, to spend their Sabbath in Washington, and trains
laden with troops, ambulances, and batteries, sped along the line of
railway, toward the rendezvous at Alexandria. A wagoner, looking
forlornly at his splintered wheels; a slovenly guard, watching some
bales of hay; a sombre negro, dozing upon his mule; a slatternly Irish
woman gossiping with a sergeant at her cottage door; a sutler in his
"dear-born," running his keen eye down the limbs of my beast; a spruce
civilian riding for curiosity; a gray-haired gentleman, in a threadbare
suit, going to camp on foot, to say good by to his boy,--these were some
of the personages that I remarked, and each was a study, a sermon, and a
story. The Potomac, below me, was dotted with steamers and shipping. The
bluffs above were trodden bare, and a line of dismal marsh bordered some
stagnant pools that blistered at their bases. At points along the
river-shore, troops were embarking on board steamers; transports were
taking in tons of baggage and subsistence. There was a schooner, laden
to the water-line with locomotive engines and burden carriages; there,
a brig, shipping artillery horses by a steam derrick, that lifted them
bodily from the shore and deposited them in the hold of the vessel.
Steamers, from whose spacious saloons the tourist and the bride have
watched the picturesque margin of the Hudson, were now black with
clusters of rollicking volunteers, who climbed into the yards, and
pitched headlong from the wheel-houses. The "grand movement," for which
the people had waited so long, and which McClellan had promised so
often, was at length to be made. The Army of the Potomac was to be
transferred to Fortress Monroe, at the foot of the Chesapeake, and to
advance by the peninsula of the James and the York, upon the city of
Richmond.

I rode through Washington Street, the seat of some ancient residences,
and found it lined with freshly arrived troops. The grave-slabs in a
fine old churchyard were strewn with weary cavalry-men, and they lay in
some side yards, soundly sleeping. Some artillery-men chatted at
doorsteps, with idle house-girls; some courtesans flaunted in furs and
ostrich feathers, through a group of coarse engineers; some sergeants of
artillery, in red trimmings, and caps gilded with cannon, were reining
their horses to leer at some ladies, who were tak